She’s wearing a brown velour hoodie with a puppy embroidered on the front, khaki pants trimmed in pink, and shoes that are at least three sizes too big. Shadows play across her face. Crushed remnants of dead leaves between her fingers, she studiously examines the ground, picking up a leaf, a twig, a bit of dry grass, holding it up in front of her to get a better look. Finally, she chooses one and holds it up to me.

“Very pretty,” I tell her, encouragingly.

She smiles, but looks vaguely disappointed. It was the wrong answer. I knew it was, as soon as I said it. Even though she doesn’t speak English yet, I felt as though I could hear my baby’s thoughts in that moment: Pretty? Just pretty? It’s not pretty, it – it’s elegant. Subtle. Beautiful in its stark simplicity – look at the angles, Mom! Look at the shadow it casts, the serenity inherent in its clean lines…

I know, because in my dimmest, earliest memories, I remember being that serious, quiet child who could sit for hours in the yard, just looking at the world around me, thinking thoughts and appreciating beauty that, like my daughter, I didn’t have the words to express, hearing the adults around me dismiss my most sublime and breathtaking discoveries as merely “pretty.”

By way of apology, I offer her a stick – short, but bleached almost pure white by the sun, with one branching twig reaching out in just the right way. She accepts it with good grace, and we go back to communing in silence.

The weirdest thing I’m coming away with is the idea that apparently, “choice feminism” is a dirty word in some circles. Which… lolwut? Srsly, what kind of feminism are you practicing over there??

Look, let me make this simple. If your feminism does not aggressively embrace the idea that women are individuals, if it does not understand that each woman’s circumstances are her own, if it is not 100% on board with the idea that women can and should have FULL agency to make their own decisions based on their own circumstances, asking permission of no one… then it is no feminism of mine.

And yeah no, I’m sorry, but saying “oh, I’m sure you have your little reasons *pat pat pat*, I’m not saying you’re a bad person for that decision, I’m just saying it’s anti-feminist“… no, sorry, that doesn’t cut it. You are still Lady Judgeypants of Judgeypants Manor, and you are still shaming women for their choices.

You are, in fact, doing the exact opposite of everything my feminism is about – trusting women, respecting women, giving women their agency and treating them like fucking grown-ups. Knock it off.